Hollywood women making a stand on the gender pay gap

'If I told you the disparity, you would probably be surprised'

Turns out it's not just women in the UK who experience the gender pay gap, it's the stars of Hollywood who are also affected.

Last year, Jennifer Lawrence spoke about her anger after finding out she was being paid less than her male co-stars.

In a letter she penned for Lenny Letter, Lena Dunham's twice-weekly newsletter, The Hunger Games star revealed she discovered she was earning less than male actors starring in the same film, after the Sony hacks exposed the payroll of various A-listers.

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While she acknowledged that it was a difficult problem to relate to because, let's face it, movie stars aren't exactly earning minimum wage, she said she was frustrated by the situation because she realised she didn't want to come across as being 'difficult'.

'I didn't want to seem difficult or spoiled', she said. 'At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realised every man I was working with definitely didn't worry about being "difficult" or "spoiled"'.

Lawrence isn't the only A-lister to voice her views on the topic. Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, and Gwyneth Paltrow have also been outspoken on the matter.

And so, on Equal Pay Day, We've rounded up some of the celebrities weighing in on the debate.

Jennifer Lawrence

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"It's hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can safely say my problems aren't exactly relatable. When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn't get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn't want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don't need. (I told you it wasn't relatable, don't hate me).

"But if I'm honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn't say there was an element of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real fight. I didn't want to seem 'difficult' or 'spoiled'. At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realised every man I was working with definitely didn't worry about being 'difficult' or 'spoiled.'"

Meryl Streep

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"We have to be made equal. I will say that it [the pay gap] has to do with the distribution of films and how films are financed. The top ten buyers in the United States for films - for every territory - there is not one woman."

"Men and women have different tastes sometimes but if the people that are choosing what goes out into the multiplexes are all of one persuasion, the choice will be limited and then that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, you see?"

Amanda Seyfried

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"A few years ago, on one of my big-budget films, I found I was being paid 10% of what my male co-star was getting, and we were pretty even in status."

"I think people think because I’m easy-going and game to do things, I’ll just take as little as they offer. But it’s not about how much you get, it’s about how fair it is."

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Charlize Theron

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[On asking for more money on a film she has previously worked on] “I have to give them credit because once I asked, they said yes. They did not fight it. And maybe that’s the message: that we just need to put our foot down."

"This is a good time for us to bring this to a place of fairness, and girls need to know that being a feminist is a good thing. It doesn’t mean that you hate men. It means equal rights. If you’re doing the same job, you should be compensated and treated in the same way."

Sienna Miller

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"I’ve had a similar experience. A couple of months ago I was offered a part on Broadway and I was offered less than half of what they were paying the man. And I walked away. We will have to start saying no to offers where we get paid too much less than our male counterparts."

"I know we get paid so much more than normal working folks, so we do need some perspective on that. But at the same time, we are in a position where we need to talk about it. It is outrageous to me that we live in a culture where it is this unequal."

Kate Winslet

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"I'm having such a problem with these conversations, because they keep coming up. And I understand why they are coming up but maybe it's a British thing: I don't like talking about money. It's a bit vulgar isn't it?"

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"I don't think that's a very nice conversation to have publicly at all. I am a very lucky woman and I'm quite happy with how things are ticking along."

Carey Mulligan

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“We’ve got such a huge gap in the boardroom and in business and in every aspect of society, and we’ve got a platform to speak about it."

"I’m always hyper-aware that my job is a joy to me and something that I’m paid an awful lot of money to do for something that I love. I’m not a doctor or a nurse, I’m an actress. It’s vital that we’re all equally treated. I do hope the conversation around pay in Hollywood has a bigger effect on society as a whole and that it isn’t ultimately self-serving. It would be a shame for it to become just a conversation about that."

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Gwyneth Paltrow

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"Your salary is a way to quantify what you're worth. If men are being paid a lot more for doing the same thing, it feels s****y."

"Look, nobody is worth the money that Robert Downey Jr. is worth. But if I told you the disparity, you would probably be surprised."

Helen Mirren

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"I read somewhere that when a young couple goes out on a date, the boy won’t go see the movie the girl wants to see, but the girl will go to see the movie the boy wants to see. Which is why men drive box office numbers and the Bruce Willises and Brad Pitts of the world get far more money"

Rooney Mara

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"I’ve been in films where I’ve found out my male co-star got paid double what I got paid, and it’s just a reality of the time that we live in. To me, it’s frustrating, but at the same time, I’m just grateful to be getting paid at all for what I do"

"It’s not fair, but I think about how much teachers are getting paid, or other people who are doing jobs that are so much more important than what I do, and it’s kind of hard to complain about it."

Natalie Portman

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“Ashton Kutcher was paid three times as much as me on No Strings Attached, I knew and I went along with it because there’s this thing with ‘quotes’ in Hollywood, his [quote] was three times higher than mine, so they said he should get three times more."

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"I wasn’t as pissed as I should have been. I mean, we get paid a lot, so it’s hard to complain, but the disparity is crazy. Compared to men, in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar. In Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”

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